The US firm said it would make a formal offer within 20 working days and will be subject to 90% acceptance.
China hurdle removed
In December 2023, an unnamed party that Rakon called a “credible industry player” (reportedly US manufacturer Skyworks) made a non-binding indicative bid of $1.70 for Rakon – a 174% premium on its share price of the time (a pre-offer 62c) that valued the firm at $390m.
In July 2024, Rakon’s board said it ended non-binding indicative offer talks due to “potential complexities encountered during due diligence”.
Mander said the “complexities” were widely thought to be Rakon’s business in China and the risk of falling foul of US export controls.
But last year, Rakon said it had dropped an unnamed Chinese customer that it said accounted for 5% of its revenue.
The move made Rakon a slightly smaller business, but a more saleable one. Mander said it was widely anticipated that Rakon would attract another bid, now that the China connection – the major deal barrier – had been removed.
A “background letter” released by Bourns said the 2023 offer was “highly conditional”.
“Bourns’ offer is not subject to a due diligence condition.”
The letter said Rakon had only paid a dividend once – 1.5c per share in 2023 – while Bourns’ offer “would provide shareholders certainty and immediate value, while also positioning Rakon for long-term success as part of Bourns’ global operations.”
Rakon’s shares traded at $5.60 (split-adjusted) in 2007, shortly after it listed, but it never regained its NZX high-flyer status after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
This decade, its share price high was the $2.08 it hit in late-2021 during the pandemic boom in tech stocks.
In the balance
Mander said the takeover threshold would depend on the ultimate shape of Bourns’ bid.
The NZ Shareholders’ Association would need to study the material released today further and see the formal offer before making a recommendation to its members, Mander said.
ACC’s investment arm holds a 3.7% stake in Rakon. It could not be immediately reached for comment.
Rakon said it had formed a committee of independent directors to assess the offer. It had also appointed Calibre Partners as its independent advisor and Bell Gully as its legal offer.
November saw Brent Robinson (the son of Rakon founder Warren Robinson) elected chairman, replacing the retiring Lorraine Witten.
Independent members of the board had unanimously backed Mark Bregman to succeed Witten but Bregman withdrew his nomination in August after losing the backing of the Robinson family and Siward amid a conflict over the company’s direction and governance.
The Bourns identity
The California-based Bourns Inc was founded in 1947 by the Bourns family, with third-generation members running the business today.
The privately-held firm does not release accounts, but its annual revenue has been estimated at US$1 billion and its private equity value at up to US$3b.
According to its website, Bourns has 5300 staff and operations across 20 facilities worldwide, with a presence in North America, Europe, Africa, Japan, Taiwan and China.
An NZX filing says under Bourns’ ownership, “Rakon would become a new, complementary standalone division within Bourns’ existing organisation with continued leadership by the existing Rakon management team. Bourns has no current intentions to make any material changes in the immediate term to existing operating locations and activities within the Rakon Group.”
Loss narrows
Rakon makes frequency control crystals, which help everything from cell tower gear to satellites to guided missiles, keeping their communications in sync.
Rakon reported a net loss of $3m for the six months to September 30, 2025, against its $10m loss for the prior first-half.
Revenue increased 30% from the year-ago $41.7m to $54.2m.
Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) were $3.6m, from a year-ago ebitda loss of $7.3m.
Full-year ebitda guidance was unchanged at $15-$24m, the firm said in an NZX filing. On a conference call, chief financial officer Mark Dunwoodie said full-year revenue guidance of $120-$130m, given at the August 22 annual meeting, was also still in place.
No dividend was declared.
The revenue jump was tied to a rebound in the largest market for Rakon’s frequency control crystals: telecommunications infrastructure, where upgrades have been delayed with the global economic slowdown. Telco revenue rose 49% to $25.0m.
Rakon said there had been 50% growth in its “AI and data centre” segment of telecommunications (its frequency control technology helps data centres stay in sync via telco networks), but it did not break out a figure.
Asked about AI products on the conference call, Rakon chief executive Sinan Altug said, “we have quite a lot of products that are new and that have evolved from existing [Rakon AI] products that are on our future roadmap, but I’ll leave it there.”
Higher profit margin with India shift
Gross margin improved 11 points to 48.8%, which Rakon said was driven by “scale, mix and India cost efficiencies”.
“India production is now in full volume for transferred product lines, already delivering approximately $2m of margin uplift from the first 25% of the planned NZ-to-India transfer,” Rakon said in a statement to the NZX.
“As around 80% of total production migrates over the next three quarters, these benefits are expected to expand substantially, underpinning Rakon’s long-term margin and capacity strategy.”
In November 2024, after revealing it had laid off 22% of its workforce, Rakon announced a plan “to accelerate the transfer of high-priority space and telco products from France and New Zealand into the new Indian facility” – a reference to its facility in Bengaluru.
Rakon had 719 global staff at the time of its first-half FY2026 results (including 334 in India and 232 in NZ) compared to the “1000+” listed in its 2023 annual report.
The firm, which has manufacturing operations in NZ, India and Europe, said in May last year that it makes 15 to 20% of its revenue from US.
Its first half-results presentation made no mention of US President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.
On a conference call, Altug said it was a “fluid situation”. He added, ”The impact of tariffs on our business so far is minimal, if any.”
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.